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Thursday, May 31, 2012

E.H.U.D.: Part 1, Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Today was the end
of the third month of John’s new life. It was also the day of his
release from the hospital. And, he realized as his parents came
bursting through his door bearing brightly wrapped packages, today
was his birthday.

“Hey! You guys
remembered! Hell, I didn’t even remember.”

“Happy birthday,
Johnny,” his father said, depositing his present on the bed and
wrapping John in a bear hug.

“Oh, let me at
him, I haven’t seen him in almost two months!” Now it was
mother’s turn to try and strangle the life out of him.

“Two months?
That’s nothing.” John looked up to the door and saw a tall,
middle aged man that looked a lot like he did. “I haven’t seen
the sorry schmuck in close to ten years.”

“Oh my God,
Reggie, I didn’t think you’d come.” John reached out and
embraced his brother. It was good to have Reggie there; he was
usually able to keep mother and father from being… well,
themselves.

“Somebody’s got
to help you get moved, little guy, and the folks are too old.”

“Hey,” father
said, “who’s too old? We’ve already got the room ready and
everything.” He smiled at John and clapped him on the shoulder.

John cleared his
throat and looked away.

“What? What’s
wrong?”

“Um…” John
suddenly wished he had broached the subject earlier. “I, uh,
already have living arrangements planned.”

Mother appeared
between father and son. “No, out of the question; you’re coming
with us. Where else could you go anyway? It’s not like you had
life insurance.”

“Well, the thing
is, the army—“

“Yes, we know,
they told us—all the medical bills.”

“Wellll…”

“What?” father
demanded.

“They’ve kind
of set me up with an apartment at Sky Crest.”

“Whoa-ho!”
Reggie moved the presents off the bed and sat down. “Things seem
to be looking up for you!”

“Yeah…”

Mother shook her
head. “No, it’s not a good idea. You need to be with family.”

“Mom, I had
family; you guys were right there when I came back. It’s more than
any son could ask for.” He reached down and tried to hug her, but
she moved away, determined to stay offended.

“And look how
grateful you’re being for all we’ve done for you!”

“Mom, I can’t
stay a kid forever. I have to move on sometime.”

“Don’t say
that! You’ve already moved on once! It was more than I could
bear; I cried for more than a year!”

“She did,”
father confirmed.

“I want you
close; I can’t lose you again.”

John spread his
hands. “I’m sorry, mom. I’m a grown-up now; I have a world to
conquer. But don’t worry, I’ll visit.”

The tension in the
room stretched on for a few moments more, then snapped as mother
returned to John and hugged him.

“Speaking of
visiting…” father muttered.

Reggie checked his
watch. “Damn. She should be out by now.”

John raised his
head from his mother’s shoulder. “Who?”

Reggie stood up and
headed out the door. “I’ll be right back.”

“Who? Did he
bring Rachel?”

“Mhh,” mother
grumbled.

“They having
problems?”

Father chuckled and
shifted his cap. “You’ve got no idea.”

A few minutes later
Reggie returned leading a sullen-looking teenage girl. Her hair
appeared to be naturally red, but there were streaks of black through
it. As she surveyed the room with an expression of resigned boredom
light glinted off a stud in her right nostril.

“John, I’m sure
you remember my daughter.”

Yes, John had to
admit, he did. She was a sweet seven year old, proudly stomping
around Reggie’s house and showing anyone she could the bloody
remains of a dislodged tooth. But now, having been transformed into
this zombie that just took up space in the middle of the room…
John suddenly felt the years of his vegetative state catch up with
him.

“My God, how old
am I?”

Rachel snorted.
“Wow, glad you were able to get through high-school with that.”

“Whatever.”
Rachel went and sat in the glide rocker, absently kicking at the
presents stacked around it.

“You’re
thirty-seven,” father said, trying to ignore Rachel.

John slumped onto
the bed. “Shit.”

Reggie snorted.
“Tell me about it; I turn forty next month.”

“Shit.”

Two hours later,
John was sitting in a wheel chair, being guided down a hallway by a
nurse. His family walked around him, and he was only a few hundred
yards from freedom.

When they reached
the foyer, John saw Dr. Shemuptura and asked his nurse to wheel him
towards her.

The doctor looked
up from her palm-top as she saw John approaching. “Ah, John, I
hoped to see you before you left.”

John extended his
hand and the doctor shook it. “Thanks for everything, doctor. I
wish I didn’t have to be here, but since I did, I’m glad I got to
meet you.”

“The same, Mr.
Donalson, the same. I know it might be uncomfortable to think back
on all this, but I’d be honored if you would keep me updated as
your life progresses.”

“Will do, doctor.
See you around.”

“Goodbye John.
Make up for your lost time.”

John smiled, then
signaled for his nurse to return him to his family.

They didn’t say
anything as they continued through the last few feet of the foyer.
Then, the doors swooshed open… and John was free. He stood from
the wheelchair and stretched, breathing in the warm May air. This
wasn’t the first time he had been outside since his rebirth, but it
was the first time he truly felt like the world was open to
him.

He smiled at his
family. “God, this feels good. It’s like… like I’ve been
born again.”

Rachel snorted.
“Two birthdays on the same date.”

John jumped in the
air and whooped.

Reggie smiled.
“Okay, okay, yes you’re happy. Unfortunately we’re running
late, so we need to get to the station fast, okay?”

John took a deep
breath and pushed his glasses back up on his head. “Yeah. Okay.
Is the cab here?”

He looked around
and saw his father waving from further down the line of cars that
fronted the hospital.

“Okay.” John
reached down and hugged his mom. “You guys drive safely, okay?
I’ll see you tonight after I get settled in.”

“You sure you
don’t want to drive up with us?” There was an unmistakable sound
of pleading in her voice.

“I’m sorry, no;
I don’t really feel comfortable driving long distances right now.
The cab’s bad enough, but I really feel better with the train.”

“You can come
with us, Mom,” Reggie offered.

Father arrived,
leading the cab. “If she goes with you, who gets your car,
Reggie?”

He shrugged. “I
could take the train down later then drive it home.”

Mother smiled and
nodded. “Yes, that works—“

“Marge.”
Father’s voice was devoid of emotion.

“I want to be
with my—“

“Marge. It works
better this way. You can get dinner ready to your heart’s content,
and John can get settled in. You’ve been without him for two
months; what’s a few more hours going to hurt?”

She sighed. “Yes,
you’re right, you’re right. I’ll go get Reggie’s car then.”
She turned quickly and headed in the direction of the parking
garage.

“It’s a wonder
we never got divorced.”

“Great sentiment,
dad.”

Father smiled and
rubbed John’s head; the hair was still stubbly. “You know I love
the woman.”

“Yeah, dad.”

The cab honked
impatiently, and Reggie gestured for John and Rachel. “Time to
go.”

John quickly
embraced his father and went to the back door of the cab. Just as he
was about to get in, the earth shuddered and he stumbled.

Car alarms
activated all around the parking lot, and a few seconds later a sound
like muffled thunder rolled past them.

“What the hell
was that?” Rachel gasped.

Defense Secretary
Edgar Latterndale sat at the massive table that took up most of the
White House’s cabinet room. He glanced down at his palm-top
computer: it was nearly ten, and the president hadn’t shown up yet.
That in itself wasn’t strange; the president was notorious for
scheduling events before his morning cabinet sessions and showing up
late, but this time was different. There wasn’t anything on the
schedule; in fact, the president had assured them yesterday that
today he would try his hardest to arrive on time.

After half an hour,
it looked like this promise, like most of those he made while
campaigning, was empty.

Edgar didn’t
mind, however. He needed the extra time to go over his notes, to try
to convince himself that what he had been given about the morning’s
events was factual. It seemed impossible; spontaneous combustion was
something that hadn’t been taken seriously since the 1800s. Yet
here it was: spontaneous combustion was believed to be behind a case
of domestic terrorism.

Edgar checked the
time again. Ten o’clock, straight up.

Normally, news of
spontaneous combustion, or even news of domestic terrorism, wouldn’t
come through him. That was the NSA’s job. But there were just
enough facts about the incident, just a few extra details that pushed
the incident squarely into Edgar’s territory.

The most important
detail, however, was that it was one of Edgar’s immediate
subordinates who had spontaneously combusted. That wasn’t
something he was looking forward to telling the president.

Speaking of which…

The door to the
cabinet room opened and President Isaac Latterndale walked in,
smiling briefly at his gathered advisers. “Sorry for the delay,
folks; brunch ran long.”

Everyone knew what
that meant: he had been trolling for campaign contributions.

Again.

The president
pulled out his chair at the head of the table and sat down. “Right.
I know we have a lot on our plates this morning, no pun intended,
but what I want to know is what the hell happened?”

“You meant the
explosion?” asked Press Secretary Eli Rosencrantz.

“So that’s what
we’re calling it? Yes, the explosion.”

Edgar felt his
palms begin to sweat. If the president was turning to Eli first, it
meant he suspected something was wrong.

Eli wiped his
fingers across a small screen. “Well, it seems that a utilities
pipeway in the Metros exploded, knocking out an entire line and
killing some fifty people. Reports are still coming in, and rescue
workers are of course on the scene. From early examinations, it
seems to have been a case of age, of an antique infrastructure
reaching its natural limit.” He paused and locked eyes with the
president. “Perhaps a move should be made to over-haul the Metro
and pre-empt any more disasters like this from occurring?”

The president
stroked his beard and considered the story and, more importantly, the
proposal at the end. Finally he nodded. “Good job, Eli. Feed
that to the local authorities; get someone in the House to work on
pushing the overhaul.”

Edgar glowered, his
dark eyes disappearing under his brow. He hated it when the
president brought up their relationship. He had worked hard getting
where he was, yet every time the president referred to him as
“cousin” or some derivation thereof, it was as if his record were
wiped clean and he was reduced to some simpleton riding a wave of
nepotism.

He cleared his
throat and tried to focus on the task at hand. “We’re unsure of
the motives behind what happened. There is a distinct possibility
that it was a terrorist attack of some sort, but no one’s claiming
responsibility. Personally, I believe that it was simply an
accident.”

“An accident?”
the president frowned. “So, what, Eli was telling the truth for
once?”

This was what it
all came down to. “Maybe ‘accident’ is the wrong word. I mean
that there was no malicious intent; it was just an event. Based on
security footage, the blast was centered on a single person.
Specifically, Ashleigh Chuskus.”

Edgar paused as he
let the name sink in. It took a moment; the name was familiar to
everyone at the table, but no one seemed to immediately remember why.

The president was
the first to get it. “This would be one of the Ashleighs from the
Defenders, wouldn’t it?”

There was a
collective gasp from around the table. The Defenders was a subject
that was rarely brought up privately—never publicly. The Defenders
were the president’s dirty little secret, a special military
project created by—and thoroughly hidden in the wording of—the
ADI bill. For the president to mention them at all spoke of
something far more serious than a simple Metro explosion.

“Yes, this would
be an Ashleigh from the Defenders.”

“And you say you
have footage of this?”

Edgar held up his
computer and pushed a few buttons. Around the table, the others
pulled out their own computers and stared in silence as a group of
people crossed a subway platform and stood waiting near the tracks.
One woman, blond and emaciated, with bulging eyes, turned and looked
directly into the camera that had taken in the scene. She smiled,
raised the middle finger of her right hand and… exploded. One
minute she was there, surrounded by hundreds of other commuters. The
next, there was a flash of light and the scene went dark.

“How did she do
this?” the president said softly.

“You won’t like
the answer.”

“Try me.”

“I have no idea.”

There was dead
silence.

“No evidence of
explosives?”

“So far… none.”

“There’s only
one possibility, then,” the president said, staring vacantly at the
table top. “She did it all by herself, with no natural
explanation.”

Glances were shared
around the table. The president had voiced their worst fears: A
Defender had used paranormal powers. It was one thing to read status
updates, to hear progress-reports from the scientists who had helped
in the creation of the Defenders. It was quite another to hear the
president acknowledging that these powers had been responsible for a
real-life disaster.

“Which opens up a
worse possibility,” the president continued. “Chuskus knew what
she was doing. Which means that, for whatever reason, her psychic
conditioning has screwed up, and she went rogue.”

The president
looked up at Edgar. “If one can screw up, others can.”

“I agree
completely.”

“I don’t want
them going rogue on me.”

“I understand.”

The secretary of
the interior tapped on the table. “So what are we going to do
about it?” She sounded nervous.

No one scrambled to
answer her question.

The president
snorted. “We do nothing. For the rest of this meeting, we’re
going to pretend like nothing happened; the Metro’s getting old,
and the aging infrastructure is collapsing. We’re going to talk
about trade relations, legislation, violence in the Middle East,
whatever.” He pointed at Edgar. “As soon as we’re done here,
you’re going to Arlington and having a little heart-to-heart with
General Mistlethwakey about what happened this morning. Find out
what he thinks happened to Ashleigh, see what he thinks about the
rest. Above all, come back with answers for tomorrow. Got that?”

Edgar nodded. He
wasn’t happy about it, but he had expected it. General
Mistlethwakey, the eccentric little man who had help to create the
defenders, was the most likely to know what to do next.

The president
shrugged. “Then we have one hell of a potential disaster on our
hands, and we try to scrap the project any way possible.”

By the time the
Edgar managed to get to the Pentagon it was after noon, and the lunch
hour seemed to make the building feel even more crowded and chaotic.
Based on the crowds swarming through the labyrinthine passages, it
would probably be another twenty minutes before Edgar could talk to
General Mistlethwakey. Assuming he was in his office. Edgar had
called ahead and warned the general’s aide of his arrival, but with
Mistlethwakey, anything was possible.

Despite his
relatively low status in the Washington hierarchy, General Robert
Mistlethwakey was a force beholden to no one but himself. He was
friends with everyone, and everyone owed him favors. And
Mistlethwakey always reminded those who owed him of this fact. If,
for whatever reason, the general was out of his office, there was
nothing Edgar could do but wait. And as he continued to walk through
the never-ending halls, Edgar had the sinking feeling that the
general would make him wait. As he was nominally
Mistlethwakey’s boss, it was highly likely he would be forced to
wait for some time, especially since he had the audacity to arrive
during lunch. The general enjoyed his mealtimes; Edgar couldn’t
remember a time when he had seen Mistlethwakey not eating.

His thoughts were
interrupted by the tune of “Home Means Nevada” coming from
somewhere around his waist-line. He pulled a small loop of plastic
from his jacket pocket and slipped it over his ear.

“Hello, Amanda.”
The music abruptly stopped as he spoke.

“Where are you?”
His wife’s voice sounded pleasant, but with an unmistakably bitter
edge.

“I’m at work;
where are you?”

“I’m at Ethan’s
recital.”

Something was
wrong. “But that isn’t till three.”

“It was at ten.”

“Since when?”

Amanda sighed.
“Since it was first scheduled. God, Edgar, you’ve known about
this for five months, and you promised Ethan you’d be there; you
said you could get time off.”

“Well, I’m
sorry, but something more important came up.”

“More important
than your son?”

Now there was a
loaded question. He was in enough trouble for missing the recital.
If he answered yes, Amanda would go into a tirade about his
priorities; if he said no, then she’d be even angrier over his
absence.

At least he didn’t
need to worry about anger from Ethan: there would only be sullen
silence from that front.

Edgar dodged around
a group of civilian contractors and came to an answer.

“Yes, there was
something more important than Ethan. I’m sorry it had to be that
way, but the security of the entire nation is greater then the
temporary happiness of one boy. I know it’ll be hard for him to
take, but if he can learn that lesson, he’ll be a better man for
it.”

“And if he grows
up learning that a man abandons his own family for the well-being of
others?”

Edgar had neither
the time nor patience for this. Besides, he still had to deal with
Mistlethwakey. “Look, did you film the damn thing?”

“Yes.”

“Good, then
tonight we’ll all have a nice dinner around the TV and watch it.”

“It won’t be
the same—“

“Exactly. We
won’t have sixty complete strangers around us, Ethan won’t be
scared shitless, and we can be comfortable.”

There was no
response from Amanda.

“Hello? You
there?”

“I’ll see you
tonight. We’ll talk then.” Her voice had lost its’ disguise
of pleasantness and had taken on an edge of unforgiveness.

“Goodbye, dear.”

Amanda hung up.

That probably could
have gone better…

Edgar slipped the
loop from his ear and returned it to his pocket. He could feel anger
bubbling up inside him: he knew the recital was at three, it
had always been at three, it must have changed recently,
despite what Amanda said. And even if it had always been at
ten, what kind of idiot schedules a music recital at ten on a school
day? And who was Amanda to lecture him on his priorities, on how he
related to his son? It wasn’t like she spent any more time with
Ethan; she was the one who insisted on shoving him off on any
teacher, councilor, activity facilitator—

Edgar took a
calming breath and pushed his anger away, forcibly forgetting it. An
impossible explosion had occurred, he had missed the recital, and now
he was going to see Mistlethwakey. That was the world, that was the
way it was. He could deal with anything else later, or preferably
not at all.

When he finally
arrived at Mistlethwakey’s office, Edgar was surprised to find that
the general was in.

The general looked
up at Edgar when he entered, swallowed whatever was in his mouth, and
smiled. “Ah, Mr. Secretary, always a pleasure.” He held up a
half-empty carton of donuts. “Can I interest you in some late
lunch?”

“I’m good.”

Mistlethwakey
shrugged and took one for himself.

Edgar blinked at
the incongruity in front of him: Mistlethwakey, who was constantly
eating, seemed to be the poster child for gluttony. And yet,
according to the general’s personnel file, he weighed in at one
hundred and twenty-five pounds. Looking at him, Edgar doubted that
number: Mistlethwakey couldn’t weigh more than one hundred even.

The donut quickly
disappeared, and then Mistlethwakey smiled, his skull clearly visible
through his tight skin. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Answers would be
nice. What happened this morning?”

Mistlethwakey
looked blank for a moment, then nodded. “You mean the Metro
explosion?”

“You know full
well what I mean.”

“Right.”
Mistlethwakey smiled. “I know Isaac doesn’t want too much
surveillance on the Defenders, but I have a few people keeping an eye
on them. The last week or so, Ashleigh’d been acting weird, losing
weight. Nothing unusual, though. Then she quits her job and starts
going on long train rides for no reason.” He shrugged. “Then
today…”

“Today what?
Today she blows up? I already know that Bob. Worse, Isaac knows
that. And, let’s be frank here, it does nothing for his faith in
the program. In fact, I think this could very well kill the
Defenders.” If there was one thing Edgar had learned in
Washington, it was that the threat of budget cuts always worked on
people.

Not Mistlethwakey,
apparently. “No one’s going to kill anything here. This Chuskus
thing, it’s a hiccup is all. We’ve got too much invested in the
Defenders; Isaac recognizes that. It looks like he’s already got
Eli covering this, so no more needs to be said.”

Ignoring the
problem. That was what the general suggested they do. In all
honesty, it was a tempting proposition. No one, least of all Edgar,
wanted anything to do with the Defender project. It was too strange,
too convoluted. Even though Edgar agreed with its basic principles,
the idea that it could lead to domestic security, he still wouldn’t
mind seeing it shut down. Perhaps if he told the president that
Mistlethwakey had no answers to their problem, the project would
be shut down…

“This is the
project’s first hiccup after ten years,” Mistlethwakey said. It
won’t dry up just because of that.” That was something
Mistlethwakey did; he seemed to know what people were thinking.
Another thing he did was insist things happened his way, even
if reality contradicted him.

Edgar smiled.
“That’s not the first hiccup though, is it?”

Mistlethwakey’s
eyes narrowed.

“There was that
incident with Major Fendleton. Now that, that could easily
have killed the project. But I was nice enough to keep that between
you, me, and the twenty-three soldiers who died in his rampage.”
Edgar dropped the smile. “Now, unless you give me something to
tell the president— something good— then I’ll just have
to tell him that you’re second in command deliberately tried to
sabotage the project.”

As soon as the
words were said, he regretted them. Mistlethwakey manipulated you.
It didn’t work the other way around. Mistlethwakey probably had
enough dirt on Edgar to get him replaced by any number of more
accommodating defense secretaries.

Against all
expectation, Mistlethwakey smiled. “I must same, I’m rather
impressed to see that you have the balls to stand up to me like that.
You want something to tell the president, fine, I’ll give you
something.” He stood and began to slowly pace around the room.
“There’s no way her memory scrub could have failed by accident.
Our laser-guided amnesia’s fool-proof. There is no way she could
have remembered about her special abilities or about her time as a
Defender.

“Unless…” he
paused and faced Edgar, “someone, at the source, purposely botched
the scrubbing so that Ashleigh remembered. Sabotage.”

Edgar felt his
stomach clench. “You think Fendleton could have done this?” He
had thought the Fendleton incident would be his blackmail, but
it cut both ways. If Mistlethwakey let it be known that Edgar had
been aware of a potential flaw in the project and had kept it a
secret, it would be the end of not only his career, but possibly his
life. Treason was still a capitol offense.

Mistlethwakey shook
his head. “No, Fendleton was already dead by the time we scrubbed
the Defenders. Besides, this isn’t just speculation; I know for a
fact there was sabotage. I was the one who ordered it.”

The off-handedness
of the confession almost let it almost fly past Edgar. “You did
what?”

Mistlethwakey
stopped pacing. “I sabotaged the program; usurped it for my own
purposes. It’s not that hard a concept.”

Suddenly blackmail
didn’t seem that big of a concern. “You did what?”

“After putting
down Fendleton’s little uprising, I got to thinking about what he
said: the Defenders have potential to completely change the world’s
current power structure. Nuclear arsenals would be a thing of the
past, and no one would dare challenge them. But his ideas were a bit
too chaotic. They need to be controlled.”

Edgar was still
having a hard time getting around the blatant treason the general had
committed. “So you just released them onto the streets to do
whatever it is they want?”

“No, no of course
not. I merely changed the scrubbing procedures so that they’re
more likely to have spontaneous memory recovery from outside stimuli,
as opposed to going off through implanted commands.”

Edgar now stood and
confronted Mistlethwakey face to face. “But why? Why would
you compromise the program, hell the whole damn country?”

All levity
disappeared from the general’s face. “Because the world is a
screwed up place, Ed. And with the Defenders, we have a way to fix
that. If we don’t use that, if we just use the Defenders to
protect our own interests, then we’ve just committed an
unforgivable atrocity.”

Edgar shook his
head. “I can’t let you do this. You have half an hour to start
running before the president finds out and shuts this whole thing
down.”

Edgar turned and
walked away, still reeling from this sudden twist in his day.

Then the
possibilities began to occur to him: this was a way out of the whole
program. The president wanted his dirty little secret purged, and
this was it. Edgar would out the crazy general with his secret
private army, would be able to exonerate the entire administration
from involvement, would be an American hero. This was his chance for
greatness. Sure, the potential of the secret program would be
wasted, but it seemed a fair price, all things considered.

“Just because I’m
saving the world doesn’t mean there aren’t personal rewards.”

Edgar stopped and
looked back at Mistlethwakey.

“My plan is to
let the Defenders out to wreak a little havoc; hopefully the others
will do better than Ashleigh did. Then someone, someone with great
political clout, will arise to save America from the chaos that the
Defenders will cause. He will of course have inside help in the
matter, but no one else has to know that. Once the threat is
contained, America will be seen as not only humbled by its own
arrogance at creating this new monstrosity, but also as strong and
ready to put on a new face in light of the recovery from this
disaster. This new, friendlier America will then be embraced by the
world, and will be listened to when it suggests solutions for the
rest of this world’s problems. All of this can happen, Ed, if you
don’t turn me in. Keep covering for me for a little while longer,
and Pax Americana can sweep over the earth. All I need to hear are
five little words.”

Edgar sighed.
Everything in him screamed out against what Mistlethwakey was saying.
The Defenders were too big a potential threat. Even if they were
used as the plan called them to be, they were a nightmare. But if
they were loose, they could be the biggest threat to freedom that
humanity had ever faced.

Mistlethwakey
smiled, and something in his eyes burrowed down into Edgar’s soul.
“Five little words…”

“What’s in it
for me?”

Mistlethwakey
clapped his hands. “Bingo! What’s in it for you? Well, for
one, you could be a hero, the person everyone remembers as the savior
of mankind from the Defenders. For two, well, you could be
president.”

“Who said
anything about an election? Just give me six months, and I promise
the presidency will be yours.”

There it was. It
was one thing to talk about usurping America’s most dangerous super
weapon since Fat Man and Little Boy, and it was quite another to
threaten the life of the president. “No. I will not be involved
in killing the present, or any of the others between me and him.”

“You wouldn’t
be involved; the Defenders would.”

“What you said
before, about unspeakable atrocities?” He waited until
Mistlethwakey nodded. “Same principle applies to knowing about
assassins. I could care less if Isaac keeled over right now, but I
won’t be involved in his death.”

“I don’t think
you’re getting what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about
an end to petty do-gooders in the UN, I’m talking about an end to
self-important demi-dictators yelling about American imperialism when
we walk in and free a country from tyranny. In short, I’m talking
about world peace; a step towards utopia.”

“You’re talking
about killing people for a plan that only might work!”

“You can’t make
an omelet without sacrificing a few innocents.”

It was a cold
sentiment, devoid of anything Edgar recognized as humanity. But the
meaning behind it sounded familiar: it was a lesson he had said that
his son needed to learn. Edgar was no hypocrite. If his son needed
to learn it, so did he. Without making a conscious decision, Edgar
realized he was in. There was only one little detail that remained
unexplained.

“Why me? Why am
I the one you want? Why not Isaac, or you?”

“Well, Isaac’s
been around too long; some people don’t trust him. As for me, my
heredity keeps me from going any higher than vice, even if I was in a
position to inherit the throne like you are—which I’m not.”

Edgar nodded, then
backed away and leaned against a wall.

“I’ll give you
six months of silence. The president won’t know about this
conversation. If you haven’t done enough of your little plan for
world peace by then, I turn state’s evidence, and you and your
little army are finished.”

Mistlethwakey
spread his hands. “Fair enough. And in exactly six month’s
time, you’ll be president. Deal?”

“Its one
seventeen now.”

Mistlethwakey
smiled. “I said exactly, I meant exactly.” He returned
to his chair. “Now, before you go, we still have the little matter
of what you tell the president regarding Ms. Chuskus. I suggest you
tell him it was merely an accident.” His eyes unfocused as he
continued to speak, his voice becoming flat and bored-sounding, as if
he were reading from a report. “We’ve never dealt with long-term
psychic scrubbing before. Despite our best efforts, it’s an
untried science, and something must have gotten through the barriers
and brought up some memories. After that, in a moment of panic and
understandable rage, she accidentally used her now unfamiliar…
paranormal abilities, I guess would be the word, to blow herself up.
I would suggest that extra surveillance be brought to bear on the
others, and maybe speeding up the original time table to preclude
further incidents.” He clasped his hands and looked at Edgar.
“Simple.”

Edgar nodded at
that, and turned to go. He still felt unsure of his decision, unsure
if silence was the best policy. If Mistlethwakey’s plan didn’t
work, he was just as guilty of treason as the general. But if it did
work…

“I hope I can
trust you, Bob.”

He couldn’t see
Mistlethwakey’s face, but his tone of voice suggested a smile. “Of
course you can. You can always trust a man with an army of
super-soldiers.”